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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Lean Times in Middenheim

Yesterday's session got off to a bit of a slow start because I was expecting a few more players to show up than actually did,* but here are the highlights from once it got started.

The party was composed entirely of people who hadn't played in the Middenheim session, so they decided to take a job from local underworld bigwig Johann Stallart. He wanted someone to make sure someone working for a rival gang had a little "accident." They thought they could deal with this quickly and then move on to another one of the hooks I'd thrown out.

They were correct! They headed down to the Last Drop, where they found their mark. One of the PCs got in a fight with him, but left as soon as he'd scored a good hit. The other PCs stepped in to "break it up" and to calm their mark down. Once they had gotten him good and drunk the took him to a nearby alley where the party's acrobat - a woman named Artemis - picked him up and attempted to take him to the roof. Realizing he was about to slip, she just tried to direct him so that he fell on his head. This he dead, perishing instantly.

That night, there was a riot in Ulricsmund when Sigmarite protesters stood outside the temple of Ulric and demanded that the current Ar-Ulric step down. The Graf's men opened fire on these men, and several were killed. The party cowered in their flophouse.

The next day, one of the party members went to the Drowned Rat to collect their reward. They got 5 crowns for their trouble, but they were soon to spend it...

Because two of the party members who had entered the Alchemist's murder-basement in the previous session had come down with a terrible disease. The physician's student in the party, Wolfram Ambrose Hesselius von Karnstein, was able to determine - with a roll of a natural 01 - that the disease was the legendary Nurglish Rot! There was no hope of a cure, and so the party purchased a large amount of monkshood to turn into a poison to give them a more dignified death.**

After that the party debated what to do next. At first they were terrified of returning to the murder-basement, but after determining what had given the other PCs had gotten it from the bed sheet they used as a rope in the previous session, the were less anxious.

They did head to the alchemist's house in order to gain entry into his basement. Artemis distracted the guards outside with a lovely dance, and the other PCs slipped inside. After this was done, Artemis finished her dance, went around to the back of the house, climbed onto the roof, and entered through a balcony as the party had done in the last session.

Once in the basement, the party began following the path of the previous group in the last session. They made sure to destroy all the remaining pickled heads that they believed were connected to the headless bodies that had previously been encountered inside.

They also explored a lot of new sections, encountered some large dogs that had had their own heads removed and replaced with the heads of women. These had also had their teeth smashed out and replaced with dogs teeth. They avoided them without any fighting.

They found a room that gave off a strange smell that was a mixture of fire and rot. Not the the smell of a rotten corpse burning, but rather a strange smell that was both and neither at the same time. Whatever was inside cast out light, and they decided not to look in.

Finally the found a room with tables designed to fit female bodies. Each table had strange gemstones set into it, which the party duly plucked out to sell later. Under these gemstones was a strange pane of glass that had below it something that glowed the color of radiation in a cartoon. They took this as a sign that they should cut their losses and sell the goods they'd picked up.

It had its starts and stops, but on the whole I think it went well. There were a few moments where we had to look up something, but I still find WFRP's system fairly intuitive.

*Undoubtedly, this is a karmic reward from the fact that I had missed two sessions I had said I would be in last week.

**I'm not entirely happy with the way that played out. Originally, one of the infected PCs was scheduled to be in the session, but he had technical problems and couldn't join us on G+. I had forgotten to account for Fate Points, which I believe can save you, and I'll need to discuss the matter with the parties involved. However, it's likely that after my move, I'll be using WFRP to run the Dark Country. This would mean I wouldn't have to worry about it.